Americas: The New Way to Attract Meetings Is to Focus on Knowledge

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When you’re looking for a destination for your new association congress, your multinational corporation’s innovation conclave, or your plant managers’ training trip, you’re unlikely to be investigating accessibility and infrastructure. Not because you don’t care about those things, but because they are so fundamental, you’re only sourcing cities where they’re a given.

What you want to explore more carefully is local knowledge, industry, expertise, research, and universities. You want to know who you can attract to your program, who you can bring in to teach your attendees, who you might contact for a tour of a local factory or facility.

That, anyway, is the premise behind a new marketing strategy among many cities and countries, particularly in Europe. Consider the Netherlands, where a new online conferences portal positions the country as a “brainport” with nine industries represented across its major cities. The portal is organized by sector first, meeting facilities second.